Thursday, September 12, 2013

My evolution on 9/11

I've posted each year on this (check the archives).  I don't think I will continue.  My thinking has evolved.  It used to be this:
But even such a war leads to losses such as we have just suffered.  It is in moments like this that we bow our heads in respect for those who laid their sacrifice on the altar of our freedom.

But then we need to steel our resolve, and let our veins grow cold again.  This war isn't over yet.  But it is, in every way imaginable, just.  Remember them, and their sacrifice, and what it was for. 
It evolved into this:
Osama is dead.  So's Saddam.  The debt of 9/11 has been paid in blood.  Vengence is sated.

The neocons got us into the business of nation building, and while that may be a noble sentiment, it's a spectacular failure in Afghanistan.  It's a lesser failure in Iraq, no doubt made worse by the inepness of the current administration, but a failure it is nonetheless.  There seems to be no stomach in any political party for doing what it would take to actually succeed.

And so leaving the troops in harms way to die is criminal.It is in fact sickeningly cynical.
100% of the commenters on that last one agreed with me, as compared to half of the ones on the firs link.  It's not guaranteed that vox populi is vox dei, but the data are what the data are.  I'm uninterested in nation building dreams, just in how much American blood needs to be shed, and for what.

And quite frankly, how much of other countries' blood needs to be shed, and for what.

I get no coherent answers to these questions from the current Administration.  Actually, I do, but the answers are what I read between the lines.  They want hard foreign policy matters to go away, so they can get back to the work of fundamentally transforming America.  Sorry, not impressed.

And so the exhortations that I get from the MSM, to support the TSA, or the NSA, or any of the Organs Of The State (so long as a Democrat is in 1600 Pennsylvania Ave) fall on skeptical ears.  Even if I didn't think that the MSM were the tools of the Democratic Party, they'd fall on skeptical ears.

That, I think, is a proper homage to the dead of 9/11.  None of this, of course, reflects on those dead.  Et lux perpetua luceat eis, amen.

4 comments:

Charles Lee Scudder said...

I just get to angry usually to post, who or what I am angry about varies year to year. Except people are dead or dying, no matter which side they are on.

Mick said...

The whole "War on Terror" is morphing into a form of martial law; while unstated as such, evidence strongly supports it. That said, I believe that our interests are best focused at home, due in large part to the aforementioned: If this cancer is not destroyed by vox populi, it will metastatize into full-blown governmental control as a result of progression. Stay home, fix home.

Scott_S said...

As citizens we are just as responsible for what happens in our republic as the people we elect to represent us. Do your job citizens and throw out any senator or rep that has not asked tough questions. Recall those we can who have betrayed the ideals of freedom.

ASM826 said...

What has the United States done with the last 12 years? What have we accomplished? Compare that with the 12 years after Pearl Harbor.

The problem is not Iraq or Afghanistan.